Quotes of the day

posted at 9:16 pm on October 27, 2012 by Allahpundit

The White House on Saturday flatly denied that President Barack Obama withheld requests for help from the besieged American compound in Benghazi, Libya, as it came under on attack by suspected terrorists on September 11th.

“Would the secretary of defense make such a decision on his own? No,” [Bill] Kristol wrote. “It would have been a presidential decision.”

“He’s wrong,” said Vietor.

***

Bill Kristol suggests that it had to be a decision by Obama himself not to help the Americans under siege in Benghazi and that David Petraeus is signaling exactly that with the CIA’s emphatic denial that the decision came from his shop. If that’s true, at what point does Petraeus have to speak out? If the reports are true, I think you can make the case that Petraeus should resign in protest. But that’s based somewhat on speculation about what I think happened. I don’t know for sure. Petraeus does.

***

“President Obama today said that he gave an order to everyone while the attack was going on to do everything they could to secure the personnel,” [former Reagan assistant secretary of defense Bing] West said. “Now that’s really big because that means that those who were turning down [former Navy SEAL] Ty Woods when he was asking for the help were going against the orders of the president of the United States.”…

“A chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff doesn’t take an order from the president when he says ‘do everything’ and not put that in writing and send it out to the chain of command,” West said. “If that actually happened the way President Obama today said it happened, there’s a paper trail and I think people reasonably enough can say, ‘well can we see the order?’ because hundreds of others supposedly saw this order.”

[A]s of right now, outside of a very few exceptions, the CorruptMedia has coordinated with the White House to create a complete blackout around this story. Not even yesterday’s denial from the CIA that indirectly implicates the White House garnered any media attention.

In the closing days of a reelection campaign the CorruptMedia is desperate to see Obama win, it’s glaringly obvious that nothing this potentially damaging to the president will be allowed to see the light of day — at least not until after November 6.

Had Obama answered Clark’s question yesterday, he would’ve violated this unspoken blackout agreement by making news. This would’ve forced the CorruptMedia to cover a story they’re desperate to pretend doesn’t exist. Obama knows his Media Palace Guards are covering for him, and he knew that wouldn’t have been possible had he done anything that nudged the story.

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OK, color me stupid, That should have been Arthur C Clarke, not Asimov regarding 2001 A Space Odyssey. Old Timer’s disease is a terrible thing. I also read lot’s of Clark as well. I liked the first of the Rama series.

Dang, now you are making me remember a book I read 30-some years ago.
The movie didn’t cover near as much as the book did.

Never fully explained, but HAL could complete the mission himself. Bowman and Poole, didn’t know the modified mission, and the three in deep sleep, would have done what Dave did when they woke up and discovered what he had done.

Cool. Still preferred ten but at least this is better than six. Glad to know AP was indeed sincere about figuring out a solution with Ed and their tech guy. Hopefully that bodes ill for the facebook trolls.

(Also if it was more than an hour or two ago, then I must have looked right at it earlier and been too thick to register the change. Admittedly very plausible.)

Gingotts on October 27, 2012 at 10:24 PM

Yes, Ed and Allah heard many of our complaints, loud and clear, and responded quite quickly, IMHO. Some folks were griping that the changes were made first without our input, but sometimes it’s better to make changes that you think might work, but then be ready to adjust. As a result, we got the headlines back (they’d gone down to 8 some time ago, IIRC) and the GR comments section reactivated.

I, for one, was impressed with the way they reacted and the speed in which they did so.

But here’s why you can feel the panic emanating from Chicago: Romney is currently doing better with independents than Obama did in 2008. Obama won independents by eight, in 2008 while Romney is currently leading by 10.6 points on average. If the independent numbers are entered in to the 2008 results, Romney would have a victory of over four points.

The way this attack has been handled by the media and Obama administration is making me ill.

My God it sounds like they were willing to let Americans die (many more if the former SEALs did not rush in by dis-obeying orders.)

That is just insane and can not even image the personality of someone who would allow that.

When Kohbar Towers was bombed, I was back in VA packing to go to the building that was blown up (or the only one you see in pictures, many buildings had to be condemned). A couple of days later the FBI/OSI asked for volunteers to go thru all of the buildings dreamed safe collecting evidence. They also asked us to help them sift sand at the blast crater with the Saudis (since the crater was on Saudi territory).

About 3 minutes into the sifting sand with USAF volunteers an FBI or OSI agent pulled me aside and said “I need you at that table with the Saudis.” “Your job is to pretend to sift sand but your real job is to watch them and make sure they do not slip anything into thier pockets/robes.”

They fact that CNN found the diary of the Stevens first is just sickening. Because obviously The crime scene was not protected like it was at Kohbar.

“President Obama today said that he gave an order to everyone while the attack was going on to do everything they could to secure the personnel,” [former Reagan assistant secretary of defense Bing] West said. “Now that’s really big because that means that those who were turning down [former Navy SEAL] Ty Woods when he was asking for the help were going against the orders of the president of the United States.”…

“A chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff doesn’t take an order from the president when he says ‘do everything’ and not put that in writing and send it out to the chain of command,” West said. “If that actually happened the way President Obama today said it happened, there’s a paper trail and I think people reasonably enough can say, ‘well can we see the order?’ because hundreds of others supposedly saw this order.”

“But if there is no order then people have to ask some very basic questions, ‘what the heck happened?’” he said.

Anybody else besides me see a parallel between Obama and Col. Jessup here?

Folks, those that post here on the Liberal side do so in order to get their words onto the great Interwebnetz for posterity and to influence searches. If you feel you must respond to them, only include their username and date/time. Quoting their words only helps their cause.

I hope everyone is doing well — I haven’t been posting much these last few days (although I’ve been reading the top posts) because (1) busier than usual with work plus volunteering for the campaign with GOTV efforts; (2) I’m really feeling good about where we are in the race — which is kind of weird, so I don’t want to jinx anything by posting about my optimism; and (3) it makes me so sad to see people like gumby & HAL who are so corrupt, or stupid or sociopathic that they *still* support Obama despite how he’s handled the entire Benghazi situation, prior, during & after (Vegas, baby!). Prior to Benghazi I could just think they were fools (the lack of logic in their posts made that an easy assumption) but now they *actually* make my skin crawl.

Barry, Barry…give me your answer true
Why did you lie
When you appeared on The View?
Now calls for investigation
Echo throughout the nation
And won’t it be sweet
When you squirm and then bleat:
“Hey folks…I never knew!”

Never fully explained, but HAL could complete the mission himself. Bowman and Poole, didn’t know the modified mission, and the three in deep sleep, would have done what Dave did when they woke up and discovered what he had done.

cozmo on October 27, 2012 at 10:35 PM

Okay, okay, I’m with you here. Sort of like the robot Ashe in the first Alien movie. The machine itself was not malevolent, but the people behind the programming were.

I’ll give you that I didn’t remember the plot that well, Cozmo. I was a kid when it came out.

But I know this business and film history is one of my areas of expertise. Those special effects and cinematography were all going to be used in any event. They’d been in development, and some had already existed, for some time.

The space program, the pending moon shot, and the television success of Roddenberry’s “Star Trek” inspired the studios to release of a major feature film dealing with what was considered, at the time, a more ‘realistic’ look at the future of space travel. “Star Trek” was taken as a sign that the public was hungry for more space related films, sci-fi.

The studios were looking for a film that was at once ‘sci-fi’ enough to satisfy that craving, and also ‘realistic’ enough to draw in the regular audience out of sheer curiosity. Kubrick decided that he was the man for the job, given his long time penchant for different cinematography and the fact that the vastness of space allowed for shots that would outpace even “Lawrence of Arabia” in terms of capturing vast empty spaces on film in a new way. He also had a key element the studios found too attractive to pass up. He had the monetary backing to make it happen. The studios went along based on his reputation, and the fact that he had all that ready made financial backing. To their money people, the suits, even if it flopped, their own losses would be mitigated, since any losses would have been spread across multiple backers, and Kubrick would have been saddled with any blame. That film was a tribute to his own ‘vision’ of what such a film should be and, despite some of it’s more obvious shortcomings in terms of plot, hailed as the ‘big bang of this generation’ in terms of cinematography and direction by…Hollywood.

I, for one, was impressed with the way they reacted and the speed in which they did so.

TXUS on October 27, 2012 at 10:37 PM

I agree. It also makes me hopeful that in that Allahpundit also acknowledged that the Facebook comments ended up “way trollier” than they had figured and that they were looking into that, and even apparently considering quitting on it if they couldn’t figure a troll solution.

I can understand that sometimes changes are best made first and sorted later, but a little bit of honest listening and reacting to feedback goes a long way. I’m happy they made and responded in that thread, as opposed to the confusing rollout of the Facebook stuff.

Bowman and Poole, didn’t know the modified mission, and the three in deep sleep, would have done what Dave did when they woke up and discovered what he had done.

cozmo on October 27, 2012 at 10:35 PM

Fun fact, way back when I took an elective course at the university that studied Kubrik’s films. The professor said HAL was actually the letters before IBM, and that Bowman was a reference to Ulysses. Even the solitary red eye of HAL was supposed to be the Cyclops that Ulysses ultimately outwitted.

I don’t see how the CorruptMedia can keep the lid on this all the way until the election. They don’t really even seem to have their story straight. Panetta said that they didn’t send the rescue team due to lack of intelligence. The CIA and the White House say that they didn’t deny any requests. Somebody’s lying, and as Romney keeps moving up in the polls, somebody in the media is going to want preserve a shred of their credibility by following up on this contradiction. Panetta’s statement and those of the CIA and White House can’t both be true.

My boss is one of the undecided voters. I walk a fine line with political talk at work. I have calmly explained all the reasons that she would basically be insane to vote for Obama. Makes you wonder how some people cross the street without assistance. My lib uncle on the other hand, I had it out with him in the middle of the street in 2008. My mom hated it degenerating into a hostile fight during Sunday dinners. I’ve since decided that giving myself a stroke trying to talk sense into koolaid drinkers is not worth it.

She’s my Congresswoman and I’m proud to say it. I will say that despite this being a Dem leaning district, Buerkle gets more of a home field advantage than expected because she’s built connections with the people. I know Dem voting union guys who like her because of that, and don’t pay attention to the fact that she’s among the most conservative Representatives because of it.

Adding to that is the fact that her opponent Dan Maffei, who “represented” us from 2009-2011 was notorious for refusing to talk to the people here while in D.C. Brilliantly as ever, he’s established his campaign around reaffirming that exact principle.

Buerkle sought to schedule a bunch of town hall meetings around the district, where the candidates could discuss the issues. Maffei flatly refused to participate. So she invited the Green party candidate who was willing to take part. Great way to connect with the people for both of them, while reminding others what Maffei was like the last time he received “a fair shot.” As such many people have been dismissive of polling showing Buerkle hanging on, doubting due to the fact that those polls show Green party candidate has been over 5% – a mistaken assumption considering the left wing votes the Greens are bleeding off of Maffei just from a simple willingness to talk to the voters.

That worthless pos was elected to the senate right after Bush 1 didn’t know about milk prices/scanners. Wyden–a US rep at the time, didn’t know where Bosnia was–or even the general vicinity and another question he as an adult should have known. It makes me so gd furious that these people are our “leaders.”

Panetta’s statement and those of the CIA and White House can’t both be true.

Progressive Heretic on October 27, 2012 at 10:49 PM

Did Panetta say that the DOD didn’t provide military support because of lack of intel BEFORE the Fox News story from the on the ground sources who said their requests for support were denied three times?

He “explained” why they sent no support, but has he been asked directly whether he was the one who denied calls for support during the attack? Could he have responded without Obama’s okay?

I still don’t agree with you on the ‘now’ part. There were many great sci-fi films around, many better in terms of plot, long before “2001″ came out. The ONLY thing it had was the special effects and cinematography tricks.

Those plot elements you were just discussing with John, wherein you explained that much of what you were talking about was in the book, not the film, were necessary plot points to the film, if an individual was to find that film understandable, but they were cut to allow for that same cinematography. That’s not great film making. It’s showmanship.

I’ll agree that, for it’s moment in time, the cinematography ‘broke ground’ in terms of that style. As far as the quality of the overall film went, it lacked a great deal. If we were to cut out those shots of the vastness of space, spacewalking, and floating around weightless, you had a very skimpy, almost impossible to understand, little film, indeed. UNLESS, all of those plot points you got in the book were filmed and inserted into the feature film.

I’d also argue that some of that cinematography and special effects was already in use in films as inexpensively done as “The Reluctant Astronaut” and ” Way, Way, Out”. (And “Way, Way, Out, had Anita Eckberg.):)

The lib dipshot I used to work with on 2nd shift (I went to days since then) was reading a KOS thread, I assume something about abortion. He turned to me and shrieked, “Why does anyone want to have children?”

Don’t feel bad about it, Fred. Most people feel that way. The problem was that key plot points in the original book were sacrificed for those special effects and shots of the vastness of space in order to bring across Kubrick’s vision and to make it a spectacular vehicle about space exploration. The viewer was left with an impression of vastness and spectacle, with very little understanding of what was at stake or what was motivating the action.

The lib dipshot I used to work with on 2nd shift (I went to days since then) was reading a KOS thread, I assume something about abortion. He turned to me and shrieked, “Why does anyone want to have children?”

My reply: “Your parents seemed to think it was a good idea.”

It was a very quiet night from that point forward.

predator on October 27, 2012 at 11:02 PM

Good ideas. :)
Occasionally I do make points, but IME it usually takes too long.